Monday, January 25, 2016

On Friday, I was told by a parent that the
Plainfield Board of Ed had failed to meet a Thursday deadline for
answering an OPRA request concerning the Board's executive session on
Tuesday, January 5, 2016.

Not only was the deadline not met, no request was made for an extension or any other reason given for not meeting the request.

As I wrote concerning the reorg (see here),
members of the public questioned why new-elected member Emily Morgan
was waiting in the auditorium while the Board -- including members John
Campbell and Richard Wyatt, who had also been elected in November -- was meeting in Executive Session.

When I asked in the open meeting why Mrs. Morgan had been excluded,
board attorney Lisa Fittipaldi said that Morgan was not eligible to
attend as she had not yet been sworn in, and besides, the meeting was
unimportant, dealing only with "housekeeping" matters.

The parent who made the OPRA request wants proof that a legal executive session was held and wants the documents to prove it.

Here's the way things should go down, if done legally (see the Digital Media Law Project's rundown here) --

Example of a properly noticed Executive Session.

A public meeting is properly noticed

A resolution is adopted by the body at that public meeting to go into closed session

The topics to be discussed must be listed (there are only nine possibilities)

The body must come back into open session at the end of the executive session to continue and/or end the (public) meeting.

The parent asked for --

The legal notice

The meeting agenda

The resolution to go into executive session

These should be easy enough to supply in a timely fashion if the meeting was conducted in accordance with the Sunshine Law.

The only agenda on the Board of Ed website is for the reorg meeting itself; it does not include any reference to an executive session.

The Board of Ed has put itself in a pickle.

If the meeting was legally business of the 2015 school board, where is the proof that it was called and conducted in accordance with the law?

What was the "housekeeping" business? "Housekeeping" is not an eligible
categroy for an executive session discussion. Where is the agenda
outling the legitimate items to be discussed?

If the executive session touched on any 2016 Board of Ed business
(election of officers, committee assignments or other reorg matters),
then the public is owed an explanation as to why Mrs. Morgan was
excluded.

The Board should clean this matter up to everyone's satisfaction immediately.

Plainfield resident since 1983. Retired as the city's Public Information Officer in 2006; prior to that Community Programs Coordinator for the Plainfield Public Library. Founding member and past president of: Faith, Bricks & Mortar; Residents Supporting Victorian Plainfield; and PCO (the outreach nonprofit of Grace Episcopal Church). Supporter of the Library, Symphony and Historic Society as well as other community groups, and active in Democratic politics.